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 The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation was incorporated in 1952, and since then has provided financial assistance to a wide variety of charitable organizations. Over the years, our program guidelines have evolved and changed. At present, we are concentrating our resources in the following three fields:
Over the past two decades it has become abundantly clear that a new breed of conservative politics has spread throughout the country. We have watched as conservative secular and religious institutions collaborated to build an intellectual and political infrastructure that has worked on many fronts to erode public support for family planning, comprehensive sexuality education, and access to comprehensive reproductive health care. And while abortion was an early flashpoint around which conservatives organized, the pro-life movement, epitomized by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and R. Albert Mohler, Jr. of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has broadened its agenda to include some, if not all forms of birth control. Edward R. Martin, Jr., an attorney representing Americans United for Life, was quoted in the New York Times in May of 2006 as saying “We see contraception and abortion as part of a mindset that’s worrisome in terms of respecting life. If you’re trying to build a culture of life, then you have to start from the very beginning of life, from conception, and you have to include how we think and act with regard to sexuality and contraception.” This reconceptualization of the pro-life movement’s position on sexuality and contraception began early in the new century following scientific advances that resulted in the use of ultrasound and other technologies to ensure fetal survival at increasingly early stages of development. This gave rise to a set of new concerns including the issues of fetal pain, fetal personhood and, ultimately, fetal rights. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, these and other issues such as “abstinence-only-until-marriage” education began to gain political traction. In response to the wishes of his socially conservative base, the president moved forward with a spate of socially conservative appointments to sensitive positions within the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and to positions on international commissions that represent the United States on global reproductive health policy issues. These appointments and the election of a Republican Congress resulted in a gradual diminution of family planning services throughout the United States. While federal support for Title X family planning funding has remained constant, support for abstinence-only education has been on the rise. Under President Bush, support for these programs has increased from $80 million in 2001 to $204 million in 2007. Further, some say that the Bush Administration has used its AIDS relief program in Africa to send its abstinence message abroad, de-emphasizing the use of condoms that prevent spread of the disease, thereby further endangering the population at risk. On another front, Mr. Bush’s election in 2000 coincided with the initial marketing of two pharmaceutical products designed to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Marketing of Mifeprex (used to induce early abortion) and Plan B (used for emergency contraception) was delayed for years by FDA inaction. Following ultimate approval, the family planning battle moved to the pharmacy where some personnel, protected by new laws, are refusing to fill prescriptions because such action would violate their religious or moral beliefs. The consequence of all of this is that states are now awash in legislative initiatives that will, if approved, make comprehensive reproductive health care increasingly difficult to obtain. The good news is that the political winds appear to be shifting. The midterm elections of 2006 brought Democratic majorities to both houses of Congress. In addition, the ongoing war in Iraq and its increasing unpopularity have resulted in plummeting polling data for the president and the supporters of the war. The result has been a new willingness on the part of progressive leaders to step forward and go on record in support of legislation to increase women’s access to family planning information and services. The objective of our work in this field is to protect and expand women’s access to reproductive health services in the belief that the ability to control one’s fertility and prevent unintended pregnancy is fundamental to the advancement of women’s opportunities. The strategy employed by the Foundation toachieve this objective is to support policy analysis, advocacy, litigation, research, message developmentand/or organizing aimed at:
Strengthening Cultural Institutions For more than two decades, the Foundation has provided support for the arts in deference to Robert Sterling Clark’s lifelong love of art and the world of collecting. When we initiated the program in 1979, New York City was emerging from a fiscal crisis that had paralyzed the arts community and resulted in the demise of many cultural institutions. We determined at the time that the most constructive way we could provide support would be to help arts organizations manage what resources they had in the most effective way possible to achieve their artistic goals. Today, we discuss these management issues within the context of capacity building. Capacity building activities fall into several broad categories including defining one’s mission, planning strategically, promoting good governance, developing resources, and managing the day-to-day activities that enable inspiration to be transformed into art. Organizational success is dependent on the creation of a clear statement of purpose and the development of a road map to help Board and staff achieve organizational goals. This process frequently involves an assessment to ensure that programs are in alignment with an organization’s objectives. Strategic planning comes into play in developing the necessary steps an organization must take to make course corrections. An effective Board of Directors is an essential ingredient in creating policies to ensure that programs are reflective of mission and fall within budget. Most important, it is the role of the Board to hire and support a creative and effective chief executive who is capable of leading the organization to programmatic success and growth. Since 1980, the Foundation has made hundreds of grants totaling more than $27 million to arts organizations in New York City for such purposes. Examples of specific management activities that we support include:
Improving the Performance of Public Institutions in New York The underlying premise of the Foundation’s interest in government performance is that government agencies and employees will deliver better services to the public in a more cost-effective manner if their activities are examined, evaluated, and held up to public view. Historically speaking, government has shown no great strength in monitoring its own performance. And we believe that specific changes in the policies and programs of public bureaucracies are best effected through the activities of outside organizations that examine government policies and encourage the development of programs that are responsive to changing societal needs. At times, this function has been carried out by the press, but as social problems have become more complicated, we have come to rely on nonprofit organizations known as advocates that make use of the following strategies to promote the “public good”:
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